1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet sorter, and more particularly to a sheet sorter which is suitably used in association with lightweight and compact photocopiers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a conventional sheet sorter which is used in association with photocopiers, printers or similar apparatuses, a plurality of sheet receiving trays are disposed in a closely spaced stack. When sheets are seriatim received from a host unit such as a copier through a sheet inlet of the sorter, a sheet transport or guide mechanism of the sorter selectively directs and delivers the sheets to the entrances of the separate trays and a sheet discharging means discharges the sheets onto the respective trays.
With the widespread use of small- and medium-size copiers and printers in recent years, a compact, easy-to-use and low-cost sheet sorter well suited to such copiers or printers has been positively demanded. With such a sorter, it is necessary that sheets received from the host unit be reliably and accurately discharged onto the selected trays without involving a complex sheet transport or guide mechanism.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,478,406, entitled Apparatus for Sorting Photocopies, issued to Clark R. Dubois on Oct. 23, 1984, teaches a compact sorter with an improvement in the mechanism for separating shiftable sheet receiving trays by a pair of vertically movable cams and a tiltable sheet conveyor having elastic belts bridging a sheet inlet area and a sheet discharge zone.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,775, entitled Sheet Sorting Apparatus, issued to Ryuhei Maruyama on Apr. 8, 1986, also teaches a compact sheet sorter including a plurality of shiftable trays arranged in a vertical array and a pair of vertically movable cams for separating the trays and making a sheet discharge zone and a tiltable sheet conveyor which bridges a sheet inlet area and the sheet discharge zone. The end of the sheet conveyor at the sheet inlet of this sorter is allowed to move slidingly.